1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,917 I think a lot of us have noticed that our cities are deeply dysfunctional. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:06,877 They're they're broken in our society, right? You have I think we have a 3 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:09,757 candidate who's like a socialist Islamist who's in danger of taking over 4 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:13,677 New York uh very soon right now. And we we have we have all sorts of problems. 5 00:00:13,760 --> 00:00:17,197 People can't afford to have kids in cities the way they're set up. Uh I 6 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:20,557 think there's this cost disease for everything. Like like what went wrong? 7 00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:23,277 What's going on with these cities? And and what's what's an optimistic take on 8 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:24,877 it, Mark? How can we fix this? 9 00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:28,157 >> Yeah. So the guy in the guy in New York is interesting. uh and uh he's you know 10 00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:31,037 kind of running slight slightly behind Quuomo for New York mayor but he's 11 00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:34,077 literally running a platform among other things of having um city- owned uh 12 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:37,437 grocery stores right and so and so you know the joke is you know he's 13 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:41,117 reinventing breadlines you know for the 21st century like you know impressive 14 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:44,157 really tremendous tremendously tremendous platform 15 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,837 >> um the uh Seattle is another case study of this Seattle to give you a sense how 16 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,197 crazy things are the the district in Seattle the city council district where 17 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:56,077 the most Microsoft and Amazon executives lived live uh elected a a city council 18 00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:00,477 woman who's who ran a platform of nationalizing Microsoft and Amazon. 19 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:03,437 Um, right. And then, you know, in the Bay Area, I've got, you know, a thou, 20 00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:06,557 you know, I I live in I live in ground zero of dysfunction and collapse. Um, 21 00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:10,317 and I've got I've got I've got thousands of stories uh from the Bay Area. Yeah. 22 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:13,277 So, like I think there's like a very fundamental political economy thing 23 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,797 happening which which is which which falls out of this sort of economic 24 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,037 transformation that's happened and this policy transformation that's happened. 25 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:22,397 And so the there's a guy there's a French there's actually a French writer 26 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:26,397 geographer who has I think the best analysis on this um and who's written a 27 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,037 great book on it called Twilight of the Elites and what he basically observes is 28 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:31,997 if you look at all the western countries through this process of sort of 29 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:35,357 de-industrialization and financialization and techn you know sort 30 00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:38,317 of technology knowledge work you know becoming preeminent at the high end of 31 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:42,477 the economy you sort of have this pattern where uh basically like in an 32 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:45,197 agricultural economy or in a manufacturing economy you kind of have 33 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:47,757 to spread everything out throughout the country because like natural resources 34 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:51,197 really matter and energy really matters and physical infrastructure matters and 35 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:54,797 access to you know trains and all these things you know really rivers and water 36 00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:57,917 and so forth really matters but if you're if you're going to replant your 37 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,957 the sort of commanding heights of your economy on knowledge work then what 38 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:03,117 you're going to do is you're going to slam basically all economic growth into 39 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:06,477 the cities right because you're which is what what Silicon Valley has done right 40 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,837 so you want all the software developers in one place and and you want them you 41 00:02:09,920 --> 00:02:11,917 know and they're gonna the good news is they're gonna eat at high-end 42 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:14,637 restaurants and they're going to employ a lot of nannies but like fundamentally 43 00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:16,957 they're going to be sitting in conference rooms you know design 44 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:20,237 designing software other and and you want that to happen in a single 45 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,237 concentrated place. Um and so what happens is basically this the cities 46 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:27,517 become a magnet for basically two kinds of people. One is sort of the upper 47 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,557 class which is to say kind of the you know highly educated elite in the 48 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:33,837 knowledgeable professions uh who make enough money where they can afford to 49 00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:38,397 buy you know $3 million houses. Um and then you've basically got the so you've 50 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:41,837 got basically like super expensive homes and then you've got public housing 51 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:45,597 so-called public housing right council estates in the UK or section 88 8H or 52 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:48,877 whatever it is housing here. um where you've got you know basically public 53 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:52,397 housing and so and then and then the public housing is is is you know is 54 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:55,437 basically it's it's you know it's you know people who are very low paid kind 55 00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:59,117 of on the you know low end of the service economy um and then and then and 56 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:01,917 then that's the city and and then who's squeezed out of the city is basically 57 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:04,397 right the entire middle class is squeezed out and just to give you an 58 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:07,357 example of this in the Bay Area if you're a cop or a firefighter in the Bay 59 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:12,557 Area and you work in Palo Alto you commute three hours both ways uh just to 60 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:15,517 be able to like have a house and afford a family right and then of course you 61 00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:17,757 look what's happening in the cities and It's, you know, there's there's like 62 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:20,317 lots of dogs, there's very few kids, right? And it's like, you know, what on 63 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:23,597 earth is that about? Well, you you can't buy a house. You you you can't you can't 64 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:26,957 you can't have a family. Um you may not even own a car. Like, how are you going 65 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:30,717 to get kids anywhere? But what happens is from from a political standpoint is 66 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:35,197 the cities then are run, right? They're in in in their local democracies, it's 67 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:38,157 these super high-end kind of, you know, very progressive elites. And then it's 68 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:40,317 sort of the clientele underclass, right? 69 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:43,677 Um that um you know, of you know, in the US it's Hispanic immigrants or 70 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:46,557 African-Americans. you know, in Europe it's it's, you know, their, you know, 71 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:49,357 their their other kind of clientele underclass that they've developed in 72 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:53,437 places like Paris. Um, and so you've got this high plus you you've got this kind 73 00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:56,717 of old political kind of structure of of, you know, sort of top plus bottom, 74 00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:59,197 you know, kind of configuration. What you've done is you squeeze the middle 75 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:02,317 and you've ejected the middle out of the cities into the countryside, but you've 76 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,837 de-industrialized and so there's no new economic activity happening in the 77 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:07,917 countryside uh for all the middle class people to do. 78 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,237 >> This so far is not an optimistic panel, Mark. 79 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:14,157 >> Sorry. [laughter] Sorry. Let me try to make it optimistic. Sorry. 80 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,277 Let me try to make it optimistic. Okay, >> let me try to make it optimistic. These 81 00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:19,117 are choices. Like these are choices. 82 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:23,117 These are policy choices. Like sometimes the way this stuff gets painted is that 83 00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:26,077 these are just like impersonal economic forces or technology forces. And of 84 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:28,717 course, you know, I get this a lot. It's like you idiot, don't you understand 85 00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:31,197 that? Like, you know, it's it's just like, you know, manufacturing is old 86 00:04:31,280 --> 00:04:34,477 fashioned. We have this all this new stuff. We shouldn't need you know what? 87 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:38,557 No, these are choices. Like there were specific choices made. I So the classic 88 00:04:38,640 --> 00:04:39,837 choice the classic choice that was made. 89 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:41,917 I'll beat since I'm at the Reagan library, I'll beat I'll beat up on 90 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:46,637 Nixon. Um so Richard Nixon the year I was born 1971 he proposed something 91 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:50,237 called project independence. Uh he he actually visionary visionary president 92 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:53,597 he saw the energy crisis coming. Um and he said it's a national imperative to 93 00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:56,797 build a thousand new nuclear power plants uh in civilian nuclear power 94 00:04:56,880 --> 00:05:00,717 plants in the US by the year 2000. Cut the entire US electric grid over to nuclear. 95 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:01,757 >> It would by the way would have gotten us 96 00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:05,437 to electric cars you know probably 30 40 years faster um and would have 97 00:05:05,520 --> 00:05:08,477 completely separated us from strategic involvement in the in in the Middle East 98 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:12,477 for for for energy. Um so that was the good news. The bad news is he created 99 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,437 the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which then prevented Project 100 00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:18,317 Independence from happening and of course the no new nuclear power plants 101 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:22,797 got built. But that was a policy choice, right? And and I'm sure that was not the 102 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:25,837 out that was not the result that he intended but that was a policy choice. 103 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:29,677 Um and so you know and and by the way a lot of this is happening right now in 104 00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:32,477 Washington. Like there is an opportunity to look at everything from nuclear 105 00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:35,837 power, minerals, natural resources. I was on a call this morning on natural 106 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:39,197 resources with very promising progress being made. um you know, rare earth 107 00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:41,197 metals, there's, you know, construction. 108 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:45,277 We we have a project to build a new city um in California. Um we've bought, you 109 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:50,317 know, four times the uh acreage of of Manhattan uh in Solano County. Um you 110 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:52,637 know, we have the opportunity to build like entirely new cities in this 111 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:56,877 country. Um you know, we like there's any number of things any number of these 112 00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:02,040 policy decisions that we could make that would cause revitalization.